"Jacky, that man is our enemy. Could you track him by his footsteps without ever letting him see you?"
Jacky smiled superior.
"Then follow him and see where he goes, and whom he joins--and come to the mine directly and tell me."
Jacky"s eyes gleamed at this intelligence. He sat down, and in a few turns of the hand painted his face war, and glided like a serpent on brutus"s trail.
The rest cleared the wood, and brought the nugget, safe hidden in their pocket-handkerchief, to camp. They begged Jem to accept the fifty pounds, if he did not mind handling the price of blood.
Jem a.s.sured them he had no such scruples, and took it with a burst of thanks.
Then they made him promise faithfully not to mention to a soul about the monster nugget. No more he did while he was sober, but, alas! some hours later, having a drop in his head, he betrayed the secret to one or two--say forty.
Robinson pitched their tent and mounted guard over the nugget. George was observed to be in a strange flutter. He ran hither and thither.
Ran to the post-office--ran to the stationer--got paper--drew up a paper--found McLaughlan--made him sign it--went to Mr. Moore--showed him Isaac"s voucher; on which Moore produced the horses, a large black horse with both bone and blood, and a good cob.
George was very much pleased with them, and asked what Levi had given for them.
"Two hundred and fifty pounds for the pair."
"Good Heavens," cried George, "what a price! Mr. Levi was in earnest."
Then he ran out and went to the tent and gave Robinson his letters.
"But there were none for me, Tom," sighed George. "Never mind, I shall soon--"
Now these letters brought joy and triumph to Robinson; one contained a free pardon, the other was a polite missive from the Colonial Government, in answer to the miners" pet.i.tion he had sent up.
"Secretary had the honor to inform Mr. Robinson that police were on the road to the mine, and that soldiers would arrive by to-morrow to form an escort, so that the miners" gold might travel in safety down to Sydney."
"Hurrah! this is good news," cried Robinson, "and what a compliment to me. Do you hear, George? an escort of soldiers coming to the camp to-morrow; they will take the nugget safe to Sydney."
"Not if we are robbed of it to-night," replied George.
At this moment in came Jacky with news of brutus. That wily man had gone but a little way in the bush when he had made a circuit, and had slipped back into another part of the mine, and Jacky had followed him first by trail, afterward by sight, and had marked him down into a certain tent, on which he had straightway put a little red mark.
"Come back after our nugget, George. Fools we were to carry it blazing in folks" eyes."
"I dare say we can beat him."
"I am game to try. Jacky, I want to put a question to you."
While Jacky and Tom were conferring in animated whispers, George was fixing an old spur he had picked up into the heel of his boot.
"That is capital, Jacky. Well, George, we have hit upon a plan."
"And so have I."
"You?"
"Yes! me! but tell me yours first, Tom."
Robinson detailed him his scheme with all its ramifications, and a very ingenious stratagem it was.
For all that, when George propounded his plan in less than six words, Robinson stared with surprise and then gave way to ludicrous admiration.
"Well," cried he, "simplicity before cunning; look at that now. Where was my head?--George, this is your day--carried _nem. con."_
"And, Tom, you can do yours all the same."
"Can I? Why, yes, to be sure I can. There, he saw that, too, before.
Why, George, if you don"t mind, you will be No. 1 and I No. 2. What makes you so sharp all of a sudden?"
"I have to think for Susan as well as us," said the poor fellow, tenderly, "that is why I am sharp--for once in a way. And now, Jacky--you are a great anxiety to me, and the time is so short--come sit by me, dear Jacky, and let me try and make you understand what I have been doing for you, that you may be good and happy, and comfortable in your old age, when your poor old limbs turn stiff, and you can hunt no longer. In grateful return for the nugget, and more than that for all your goodness and kindness to me in times of bitter trouble."
Then George showed Jacky how he had given Abner one-third of all his sheep and cattle, and Jacky two-thirds, and how McLaughlan, a just man, would see the division made. "And do leave the woods, except for a hunt now and then, Jacky; you are too good for them."
Above all, George explained with homely earnestness the nature of the sheep, her time of lambing, etc., and showed Jacky how the sheep and cattle would always keep him fed and clothed, if he would but use them reasonably, and not kill the breeders for dinner.
And Jacky listened with glistening eyes, for George"s glistened, and the sweet tones of affection and grat.i.tude pierced through this family talk, and it is sad that we must drop the curtain on this green spot in the great camp and go among our villains.
CHAPTER LXXIV.
ROBINSON did not overrate the fatal power of the fabulous ma.s.s of gold, a glimpse of which he had incautiously given to greedy eyes. It drew brutus like a magnet after it. He came all in a flutter to mephistopheles, and told him he had met the two men carrying a lump of solid gold between them so heavy that the sticks bent under it. "The sweat ran down me at the sight of it, but I managed to look another way directly."
What with the blows and kicks and bruises and defeats he had received, and with the gold ma.s.s his lawless eye had rested on, brutus was now in a state of mind terrible to think of.
l.u.s.t and hate, terrible twins, stung that dark heart to frenzy. Could he have had his will he would have dispensed with cunning, would have gone out and fired bullets from his gun into the tent, and, if his enemies came out alive, have met them hand to hand to slay or be slain. But the watchful foe had disarmed him, and he was compelled to listen to the more reynard-like ferocity of his accomplice.
"Bill," said the a.s.sa.s.sin of Carlo, "keep cool, and you shall have the swag; and yet not lose your revenge neither."
"---- you, tell me how."
"Let the bottle alone, then; you are hot enough without that. Come nearer me. What I have got to say is not the sort of thing for me to bawl about. We should not be alive half an hour if it was heard to come from our lips."
The two heads came close together, and Crawley leaned over the other side of the table and listened with senses keen as a razor.
"Suppose I show you how to make those two run out of their tent like two frightened women, and never once think about their swag?"
"Ah!"
"And fall blinded for life or dead or dying while we walk off with the swag."
"Blind, dead, dying! give me your hand. How? how? how?"
"Hush! don"t shout like that; come closer, and you, Smith."
Then a diabolical scheme hissed into the listeners" ears--a scheme at once cowardly and savage--a scheme of that terrible kind that robs courage, strength and even skill of their natural advantages, and reduces their owners to the level of the weak and the timid--a scheme worthy of the a.s.sa.s.sin of Carlo, and the name I have given this wretch, whose brain was so fertile and his heart so fiendish. Its effect on the hearers was great, but very different. Crawley recoiled, not violently, but like a serpent on which water had been poured; but brutus broke into a rapture of admiration, exultation, gratified hate.